Budget stalemate may leave newer e-gov efforts in limbo

The prospect that Congress will not finish the remaining fiscal 2007 spending bills during the lame-duck session threatens to delay progress on some newer e-government projects, observers say.

If lawmakers fail to pass the 10 remaining spending bills in the dwindling time left after they return the week of Dec. 4, agencies likely would end up funded by a continuing resolution into next year, until the 110th Congress has a chance to address the appropriations legislation.

The latest continuing resolution runs out Dec. 8; it funds agencies at the lower of the fiscal 2007 levels approved so far, or the enacted fiscal 2006 level.

Some conservative Republicans support a year-long extension of the continuing resolution. But in similar situations in the past, the leftover spending bills have been approved in the form of a catch-all omnibus bill within several months of when the new Congress convenes.

An administration official said continuing resolutions don't necessarily harm e-government projects. Rather, they just delay the initiatives until new funding is available. Most of the Office of Management and Budget's original e-government plans are ingrained in agency operations, and their funding streams would be secure even with a continuing resolution, the official said.

But Bruce McConnell, former OMB chief of information policy and technology and now president of McConnell International, a Washington-based technology policy and management consulting firm, noted that agencies funded under a continuing resolution are forced to take a very conservative approach to spending. Money is held back, new projects are put on hold and travel spending is cut; the goal becomes keeping day-to-day operations going, McConnell said.

"Trying to get things developed and improved gets much harder," McConnell said. "It slows down."

McConnell predicted that continuing resolutions will fund the government until March. He added that he expects the budget for information technology spending to be tight overall.

"The new Congress provides an opportunity for OMB to go up and tell the good news about what has been and what is being accomplished," McConnell said. "OMB would be well-served by compiling all those good news stories like it did with the cost savings and talking convincingly about the benefits of e-gov."

E-government funding restrictions established by law in the fiscal 2006 appropriations bills continue to apply under continuing resolutions, according to a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee.

But regardless of the restrictions, most of the interagency transfers of funds for e-government projects that the 2006 spending bills are designed to hamper, already have been processed or denied, the government official said.

If the Democrats are given the chance to re-do the fiscal 2007 spending bills, they could remove the restrictive language to e-government, some observers noted.

For instance, language in the Senate's version of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs spending bill, which the Senate approved last week, drew strong opposition from the Bush administration because it blocked all funding for the implementation of e-government initiatives.

The fiscal 2008 appropriations process also presents an interesting opportunity for OMB's e-government efforts.

Some observers predicted that when the Democrats take charge, they are likely to support the OMB-led projects on the basis that they are aimed at improving government operations. Others said that because the initiatives are backed by the president, Democrats might obstruct them for political reasons. Still others said they do not believe e-government will be on anybody's radar and added that the lack of interest could allow the projects to grow steadily.